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§ 13. The whole pagan system had not the least efficacy to produce and cherish true virtue in the soul. For, in the first place, the gods and goddesses, to whom religious homage was publicly paid, were patterns rather of glaring vices and iniquities than of virtues.' They were considered indeed as superior to mortals in power, and as exempt from death; but in all things else as on a level with us. the next place, the ministers of this religion, neither by precept nor example, exhorted the people to lead good and becoming lives; but gave them to understand, that all worship of the gods was comprised in rites and institutions received from former generations. And lastly, current doctrines respecting the rewards of good men, and the punishments of bad ones after this life, were some of them dubious and uncertain, and others more adapted for promoting vice than virtue. Hence most of the wiser people, about the time when Christ was born, contemned and ridiculed all these things.

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§ 14. Hence a universal corruption of morals prevailed, and crimes, which at this day cannot be named with decency, were then practised with entire impunity. Those who would see proof of this, may read Juvenal and Persius among the Latins, and Lucian among the Greeks: or if this appear too much trouble, it will be enough to think merely of the gladiatorial shows, the flagitious loves of boys, and abominable lusts; the licence of divorce, both among Greeks and Romans; the practice of exposing infants, and procuring abortion; the stews consecrated to gods: all which no law forbade."

1 Ovid, de Tristibus, lib. ii. v. 287, &c. : Quis locus est templis augustior? hæc quoque vitet,

In culpam si qua est ingeniosa suam. Cùm steterit Jovis æde, Jovis succurret in æde,

Quàm multas matres fecerit ille Deus. Proxima adoranti Junonia templa subibit, Pellicibus multis hanc doluisse Deam. Pallade conspectâ, natum de crimine virgo Sustulerit quare quæret Erichthonium.

[Compare Plato, de Leg. lib. i. p. 776, and de Republ. lib. ii. p. 430, &c. ed. Ficini. Isocrates, Encom. Busiridis, Oratt. p. 462, and Seneca, de Vita beata, cap. 26. Schl.]

2 See J. Barbeyrac, Preface to his French translation of Puffendorf's Law of nature and nations, § vi. [Yet some intelligent pagans had better views, as Socrates and the younger Pliny. The latter, in his Panegyric on Trajan, cap iii. n. 5, says: Animadverto, - etiam Deos ipsos, non tam accuratis adorantium precibus, quàm innocentiâ et sanctitate lætari: gratioremque existimari, qui delubris eorum puram castamque mentem, quàm qui meditatum carmen intulerit. Schl.]

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[What the Greeks and Romans said of the Elysian Fields, was not only fabulous in its very aspect, but it held out the prospect of voluptuous pleasures, opposed to

true virtue. The more northern nations

promised a happy immortality only to those who distinguished themselves by a martial spirit and the slaughter of numerous foes; that is, to the enemies of mankind. And the eternal bliss, which they promised to these warriors, was only a continued indulgence in vile lusts. How could such hopes excite to virtue? - Moreover, the doctrine of even these rewards and punishments was not an article of faith, among the Greeks and Romans; but everyone believed what he pleased concerning it: and, at the time of Christ's birth, the followers of Epicurus were numerous, and while many denied, most others doubted, the reality of future retribution. Polybius, Hist. v. 54. Sallust, Bell. Catil.-Schl.]

Cyprian, Epist. i. p. 2, ed. Baluz. describes at large the debased morals of the pagans. See also Cornelii Adami Exercit. de malis Romanorum ante prædicationem Evangelii moribus; in his Exercitt. Exeget. Exercit. v. Gröning. 1712, 4to. [and St. Paul to the Romans, chap. i. passim. Tr.]

[On the subject of this and several preceding sections, the reader may find satisfactory proof, in The advantage and necessity of the Christian Revelation, shown from the state of religion in the ancient heathen world; by J. Leland, D.D. 2nd ed. Dublin, 1765. 2 vols. 8vo. Tr.]

§ 15. Men, who were not altogether dull and slow, saw through the deformity of these religions, but the crafty priests had two methods of opposing them. First, they talked of miracles and prodigies which had occurred in the temples and before the statues of the gods and heroes, and which were daily witnessed still; then they laid claim to divination and oracles, by which the gods foreshowed future events. In both cases, priestly cunning shamefully imposed upon the people; nor did this escape discerning minds.' But it was needful to laugh with caution, if one would be safe. For the priests were in the habit of charging with treason to the gods, before a raging and superstitious populace, those who laid bare their frauds.

§ 16. At the time chosen by the Son of God for his birth among men, the Roman religion, as well as arms, pervaded a large part of the world. Of this religion he has a sufficient knowledge, who is not unacquainted with the superstitions of the Greeks. There are, however, some differences between them. For the Romans, to say nothing of institutions invented by Numa and others for political ends, had augmented Grecian fables by some Italic and Etrurian figments, besides giving to the gods of Egypt some sort of place among their own.3

§ 17. In the Roman provinces a new kind of religion gradually sprang up, compounded of that anciently professed by the people and that of their conquerors. For these nations, who before their subjugation had their peculiar gods and religious rites, were persuaded by degrees to adopt many of the Roman usages. This was good policy in the Romans, whose interests were promoted by the extinction of those inhuman rites which prevailed in many quarters; and it was an object no less aided by popular levity there, than by the desire that prevailed to please their masters.*

§ 18. The most prominent religions beyond the bounds of the Roman empire may be divided into two classes, the civil and the military. To the first class belong the religions of most of the oriental nations, especially of the Persians, the Egyptians, and the Indians. For, whoever carefully inspects these will easily see their adaptation to political objects, as the protection of royal authority and majesty, the preservation of public tranquillity, the increase of civil virtues, and to no others. To the second class must be referred the religions of the northern nations. For all that was inculcated, among the Germans, Britons, Celts, Goths, and others, respecting the gods and

[According to Schlegel, Mosheim, till towards the close of his life, did not utterly reject that common opinion of the ancients, that evil spirits sometimes aided the pagan priests, particularly in regard to their oracles. But he did, we are told by his pupil, come at last into the opinion now generally admitted, namely, that the pagan oracles were all mere cheats, proceeding from the crafts of the priests. See Van Dale, de Oraculis ethnicorum: among his Diss. Amstel. 1696, VOL. I.

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4to, and Bern. Fontenelle, Histoire des oracles, 1687, with the Jesuit, J. F. Baltus, Réponse à l'histoire des oracles, &c. Strasb. 1707, 8vo, and Suite de la Réponse, &c. 1708, 8vo. Tr.]

2 Dionys. Halicar. Antiquitatt. Romanor. vii. 72, t. i. p. 460, ed. Hudson.

See Sam. Petitus, ad Leges Atticas, 1. i. tit. i. p. 71. [Lactantius, Divinarum Institutt. i. 20. Schl.]

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[Strabo, Geograph. 1. iv.p. 189, &c. Schl.]

the worship due to them, was evidently suited to awaken and cherish fortitude, ferocity, and contempt of life. A careful examination of these religions will fully verify these statements.

§ 19. No nation was so rude and barbarous as to be completely without persons who saw the folly of these religions. But some of them were destitute of authority and means to remedy these evils, others had not will; all were left without sufficient wisdom for such an arduous undertaking. This can scarcely be better seen than from those attempts which Greek and Roman philosophers made against vulgar superstitions. Although they prescribed many things, not incorrectly, concerning God's nature and human duties, besides discussing sensibly enough the popular religion, yet they added to these things such wildness and absurdity, as clearly showed that it is God alone, and not men, who can teach truth without colouring and mistaking it.

§ 20. When the Son of God appeared among men, the general form of philosophizing that reigned among nations, not altogether uncivilised, was twofold: namely, the Grecian, which was also adopted by the Romans; and the oriental, which had many followers in Persia, Syria, Chaldea, Egypt, and even among the Jews. The former was properly called philosophy: the latter, those who spoke Greek designated as yvwois, that is, knowledge, namely Oɛoû, of God; because its followers pretended to restore the lost knowledge of the supreme Deity.' The friends of both were split into various sects vehemently disagreeing upon many subjects; yet with this difference, that all the sects of oriental philosophy set out from one principle, which kept them steady to some common positions, while the Greeks disagreed as to the very foundations of all wisdom. Of the oriental philosophy, we shall give account hereafter: of the Grecian and its factions, notice will be taken here.

§ 21. Some of the Grecian sects declared open war against all religion others, though opposed neither to a deity nor his worship, rather obscured than threw light upon the truth. Of the former class were the Epicureans, and the Academics. The Epicureans maintained that the world arose from chance; that the gods (whose existence they did not dare to deny) neither did, nor could, care for human affairs; that our souls were born and died; that pleasure 2

1 St. Paul mentions and disapproves both kinds of philosophy; namely, the Grecian, Colos. ii. 8, and the oriental, or yvwσis, 1 Tim. vi. 20. [Mosheim has been censured for his confident assertion of the existence of an oriental philosophy, under the name of yvois, so early as the days of Christ and his apostles. See note to cent. i. p. ii. c. i. § 5. Tr.]

2 [The ambiguity of the word pleasure has produced many disputes in the explication of the Epicurean system. If by pleasure be understood only sensual gratifications, the tenet here advanced is indisputably

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monstrous. But if it be extended to intellectual and moral objects, in what does the scheme of Epicurus, with respect to virtue, differ from the opinions of those Christian philosophers, who maintain that self-love is the only spring of all human affections and actions? Macl.. Epicurus distinguished between corporeal pleasure and mental. But he accounted both sensitive; because he held the soul to be material. His conceptions of pleasure did not extend beyond natural pleasures; the chief of which he supposed to be a calm and tranquil state of mind, undisturbed by any fear of God, or

was the governing principle, and the only reason why virtue should be loved. The Academics denied the possibility of arriving at certainty; and, therefore, disputed whether the gods existed or not; whether the soul is mortal, or survives the body; whether virtue is preferable to vice, or the contrary. These two sects, when Jesus was born, were very numerous and influential; being favoured by men of rank especially, and by nearly all the opulent.2

§22. To the second class belong the Aristotelians, Stoics, and Platonics; none of whom, however, so treated of God, religion, and moral duties, as to be of much service to mankind. The god of Aristotle is like the principle of motion in a machine: a nature happy in contemplation, and ignorant of human things. A god of this kind, who differs little from those of Epicurus, there is no reason for either loving or fearing. Whether this philosopher held the soul to

any solicitude about the future; and attended with freedom from bodily pain. His system, therefore, denied the very idea of moral or religious pleasures; and it required atheism as its foundation. See Stäudlin's Geschich. d. Moralphilos. p. 230, &c. Hanov. 1822, 8vo. Tr.]

[The Academics, or Platonists, became indeed sceptical; especially those of the Middle Academy. Some real Pyrrhonists, likewise, assumed the name of Academics. Still, it is probable, the great body of Academics, like Cicero, who is accounted one of them, merely held that all human knowledge is imperfect, that is, falls short of certainty; that of course we are obliged, in all cases, to act upon probabilities; of which there are different degrees. Tr.]

The Epicureans were the more numerous of the two. See Cicero, de Finibus bonor. et malor. i. 7, ii. 14, and Disput. Tuscul. v. 10. Hence Juvenal, Sat. xiii. v. 86, &c. thus complains of the many atheists at Rome:

Sunt in fortune qui casibus omnia ponant,
Et nullo credant mundum rectore moveri,

Naturâ volvente vices et lucis et anni:
Atque ideo intrepidi quæcunque altaria
tangunt.

[Mosheim, in these sections, gives the dark side of pagan philosophy. Like his other translators, therefore, I would aim so to soften his pictures, that the less informed reader may not be misled. This, I am persuaded, Mosheim would himself approve; as may be inferred from the following long note, inserted apparently for such a purpose, in the parallel passage of his Commentarii de Rebb. Christ, ante Constant. p. 17, 18:I cannot agree with those who maintain, that every one of the philosophers of those times, even such as discoursed well on religious subjects, were hostile to all religion. I think those learned moderns have gone too

far, who have endeavoured to prove that every sect of the philosophers, either openly or covertly, aimed to rip up the foundation of all religion. Are we to believe that not one of the many great and worthy men of those times, however free from ill intentions, was so fortunate as to make a proper use of his reason? Must all those who professed theism, and spoke sublimely of the divine perfections, be regarded as impostors, who said one thing, and meant another? Yet the celebrated and acute W. Warburton, to mention no others, lately expended much ingenuity and learning to bring us to such conclusions. See his very elaborate and noted work, entitled The Divine Legation, &c. i. 332, &c. and 419, &c. He would have us think, that all the philosophers who taught the immortality of the soul, secretly denied it; that they held nature to be the only deity; and human souls to be particles, severed from the soul of the world, to which they return at the death of the body. But not to mention that he cites only Grecian philosophers, while other nations had their philosophers also, differing widely from the Grecian; the renowned author depends not on plain and explicit testimony, which seems requisite to justify so heavy a charge, but merely on conjectures on single examples, and on inferences from the doctrines held by certain philosophers. If this kind of proof be allowed, if single instances and inferences are sufficient to convict men of duplicity, when no shadow of suspicion appears in their language, who will be found innocent? Though but an ordinary man, and far inferior to Warburton, yet I could prove that all the theologians in Christendom disbelieve, utterly, what they teach in public; and that they covertly aim to instil the poison of impiety into men's minds; if I might be allowed to assail them in the manner this learned writer assails the philosophers.' Tr.]

be mortal or immortal is at least doubtful. Now what solid and sound precepts of virtue and piety can that man give who denies the providence of God, and not obscurely intimates that the soul is mortal?

§ 23. The god of the Stoics has a little more of majesty; nor does he sit idle above the heaven and stars. Yet he is described as a corporeal being, united to matter by a necessary connexion; and, moreover, subject to fate:-so that he can neither reward nor punish. That death was decreed to souls by this sect, no scholar is unaware. Now such doctrines take away the strongest motive to virtue. Wherefore, the moral system of the Stoics, though a body splendid and illustrious, has neither nerves nor limbs.2

§ 24. Plato passes for the wisest of all the philosophers, and not undeservedly. For he set over the universe a God great in liberty, power, and intelligence; he showed men likewise both what to hope, and what to fear, after the body's death. Yet, to say nothing of the very slender foundations on which his whole doctrine rests, and of its great obscurity besides, that supreme creator of the world, whom he praises, not only wants many virtues, but is also contained in a certain place and space. What he says upon the soul and demons has an extraordinary tendency to produce and encourage superstition. Nor will his system of morals command very high estimation, if we examine it in all its parts and enquire into its first principles.5

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§ 25. As in all these sects were many things inconsistent with right reason, joined to a fondness for striving and debate, some well-disposed and moderate men determined upon believing no one of them implicitly, but upon selecting from all the better parts that were unquestionably reasonable, despising what remained. Hence originated in Egypt, and particularly at Alexandria, a new mode of philosophizing, called the eclectic. One Potamon of Alexandria has been represented as its author; but the subject has its difficulties. That this sect

See the notes on my Latin translation of R. Cudworth's Intellectual System: i. 66, 500, ii. 1171, and Mich. Morgues, Plan theologique du Pythagorisme, i. 75, &c.

2 These remarks receive some illustration from my note on Cudworth's Intel. Syst. i. 517.

[He ascribed to God neither omnipotence, nor omnipresence, nor omniscience. Schl.]

[He believed that God employs good and evil demons in the government of the world; and that men can have commerce with these demons. A person believing this may easily be led to regard idolatry as not altogether irrational. Schi.]

The defects of the Platonic philosophy are copiously, but not very accurately, depicted by Fran. Baltus, in a French work, Défense des pères accusés de Platonisme, Paris, 1711, 4to. [Plato has, moreover, been accused of Spinozism.

For Bale (Continuation des pensées diverses sur la Comète, &c. cap. 25), and Gundling (in Otiis, fasc. 2, and in Gundlingianis, Th. 43, 45) tax him with confounding God with matter. But Zimmermann (Opuscula, tom. i. p. 762, &c.) and the elder Schelhorn (Amanitatt. litterar. tom. ix. xii. and xiii.) have defended the character of Plato. Schl.]

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[The Eclectic philosophy is so called from its professing to select the better parts of the systems invented before it, and to digest these into one consistent doctrine.' Newman's Arians of the Fourth Century, Lond. 1833, p. 111. S.]

[J. Brucker, Historia crit. philos. ii. 193, has shown, that in regard to the controversies maintained by Heumann, Hasæus, and others, respecting this nearly unknown Potamon, the probability is, that he lived about the close of the second century; that his speculations had little

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